Kingdom Hearts: A True Story
by Steven James
Summary: A boy discovers that his favorite video game is reality. In fact, it's about to become his reality.
1. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I do not own rights to _Kingdom Hearts_, _Final Fantasy_, _Disney_, or any of the characters within. Thomas and his relatives are the only characters of my creation and the only ones that I own rights to in this chapter. I have no money, so don't sue me.

**Chapter One**

**Aimless Life**

_My life has not been a normal one. For some reason, I was chosen to spend my life protecting the lives of others. I have to tell you that I don't really know why I'm writing all this down. Maybe I need to do it to keep my sanity. Maybe to regain my sanity. Maybe I need to do it so I won't forget. Maybe so it will be easier to forget and move on. I have seen things that no one should ever have to see. I have fought things that should not exist. I'll never be the same for it. I'm stronger now. But I don't know that I'm still human enough for it to matter. I'll try to remember how I felt at the time of each event. Looking back, I prefer not to remember most of it. I think it is important that you know the truth, what really threatens us. That is why I take the burden of remembering for what I hope is the last time._

This whole thing started with what I thought was a video game. I finally beat _Kingdom Hearts II_ on hard mode on a Saturday two years ago. I knew that it was the only way that I could beat it before going to Disney World. It bugged my 9 year old sister, Danielle, that I hogged the T.V. all day, but I didn't care. I didn't know what better things I could have been doing then. I hadn't had enough life experience yet. I saw the hidden video and thought it was worth the time and sister torment. It was the third time I had beaten the game. Once on easy mode, once on normal, and once on hard. That was back when I thought nearly two hundred hours of my life was expendable. Back when I had so few cares. It was the last time that I was at home before I was changed forever.

The plane ride to Florida was uneventful. I slept most of the way. I had stayed up too late beating my precious game. We stayed in the hotel a night. I had an all too familiar dream. I thought that it was just a result of having played too much.

I was standing on a stained glass window. I looked down, and I saw Sora in the foreground holding the Kingdom Key high above his head. Riku and Kairi were in the background on either side of Sora, each holding their keyblades in the same way as Sora was holding his. I saw three pedestals in front of me. One held a sword, one a shield, and one a staff. An impulse told me to choose one. I thought for a second and took the sword, which is what I had always done in the game. I felt compelled to cast one into the darkness surrounding me. I chose the shield, just like the game, again. I felt what seemed like thoughts being inserted into my mind: "The darkness is a strange thing. It can be your ally and your enemy at the same time. It can overtake you." I felt a great rumbling in the glass beneath me and braced myself for battle. "But if you conquer it you will become stronger." What came for me was not what I had expected. It was gigantic, no doubt. But it was a hodgepodge of things. Its left arm and right leg were like Darkside's, from the original _Kingdom Hearts_. Its right arm and left leg were like Twilight Thorn's from _Kingdom Hearts II_. It's head was also a combination of the two, Twilight Thorn on the left half, Darkside on the right. The body, however was very different. It had no body. There was an imprisoned girl, maybe a little bit older than me, floating, suspended by what appeared to be glowing blue ropes. Her eyes were opened, but only the whites were visible. She had long, silky black hair. I noticed that she was wearing a flowing blue cloak that met in front, almost like a shirt, with a black shirt and pair of shorts underneath. She was extremely beautiful, which proved distracting at first. When her heartless/nobody body parts attacked me, however, I realized that I was in danger. "The darkness is ever changing, so beware." I jumped out of the way of the swinging arms. "It is difficult to attack the unpredictable." A giant shadow appeared underneath one of the legs of the monster. "But be vigilant! The realm of light depends on you!" Smaller shadows began jumping out of the ground, out of the shadow under the monster's foot. Heartless. "If you do not fight, then all is lost." I slew all the heartless. They disappeared in puffs of black smoke. I had no idea of how to fight with a sword. I just batted away at them and pretty much always hit.

Once the heartless were gone, I decided to take on the main body. It didn't take long before thorny black vines erupted from the ground and tried to skewer me. I somehow rolled out of the way in midair, just as Roxas had done in his battle with the Twilight Thorn. I struck whenever I got the chance, always rolling or swinging. Several times, I failed at dodging the vines and they would scrape me up. I landed more hits, however. I landed and the vines stopped coming. I managed to get in a few more hits on the beast before shadows began appearing again.

We went through the same waltz several times. I hit the body several times by accident. A previously invisible field flashed and my blade went through as though it were hitting any other part of the monster's body. Finally, the monster fell. The arms, legs, and head disappeared, and the barrier disappeared. The girls blue eyes rolled back into the front of her head. "Thank you," she said softly. Then, there was a bright flash of light.

When I woke up, I was excited. I always loved Disney World. I knew that most teenagers did not feel the same way about the "kiddy park", but I didn't really care. I loved being myself, and I was a child at heart. Why should I change myself so other people will like me more? That is one of the few things that is the same about me now. I am myself.

The first park of the trip was the Magic Kingdom. My parents, Danielle, and I entered the park with the usual few breaths of seemingly lighter air. We grabbed a map, trying to decide what attraction we would go to first. We never got a chance to decide. If you've ever been to the Magic Kingdom, then you know that Cinderella's Castle is very close to the entrance of the park. We were all bent over the map and speaking rather loudly when a huge shadow appeared over us. We looked up and saw a huge white castle looming over us above where Cinderella's Castle should have been firmly planted in the ground. Green flame erupted from one of the balconies and a huge shadow poured out of it. We watched in horror as the shadow came to the ground and broke up into a million small shadows. Shadows! Heartless! "No, it can't be!" I thought to myself. I looked back up at the castle and saw that it looked exactly like the castle of Organization XIII from the game. There was one huge difference, however. It had the crest of the heartless in the place of the nobody crest. "Maleficent!" I thought. No, I yelled it out loud this time. I watched, stunned, as the floating castle was replaced by the regular white and blue Cinderella's Castle. My parents and sister looked at me, wondering what I was doing. I recovered my reason and yelled, "We have to leave!" Just then, a large group of people ran by. I held up my arms to protect myself. Everyone ran right by me, but when I looked, my parents and sister were on the ground. I still don't know if they were unconscious or dead. I never got to find out.

The shadows overtook me and my motionless family and surrounded us. I saw a display of souvenir umbrellas at a nearby stand. The first thing that popped into my mind was the word "weapon". I grabbed an umbrella and began swinging. I forgot that no normal person could defeat a heartless. I swung and the umbrella went straight through the heartless without fazing them. I took a second and third swing and missed them just the same. I then realized my folly. I took a few steps backwards and took a fourth swing out of desperation, hoping that something would happen. I have never been more terrified than I was during that fourth swing. I knew that I could not fight back without a miracle happening. I got my miracle. My umbrella disappeared in a bright flash of light. The heartless disappeared in a puff of black smoke. I looked in my hand and saw my destiny.


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I do not own rights to any characters from _Kingdom Hearts_, _Final Fantasy_, or any Disney movies. The only characters in this chapter that I own are Thomas, Danielle, and Thomas's parents. Please don't sue me. You would lose money on the lawyer even if you got everything I own.

**Chapter Two**

**Learning to Fly**

My name is Thomas. I have shed my last name. I have no family, so my last name does not matter. I am 18 years old. The fate of the universe fell into my hands two years ago, when I shouldn't have been worrying about anything more pressing than school. And I am a master of the keyblade.

_I know what you're thinking. The keyblade doesn't exist, right? I'm holding it in my hand right now to prove to myself that it is real. In fact, Squall Leonhart exists. Cloud Strife exists. Tifa Lockheart exists. Aerith, Tidus, Wakka, the Gullwings, Cid, Auron, they all exist. So do Merlin, Aladdin, Hercules, Jack Sparrow, and Mickey Mouse. The same goes for Sora, Riku, and Kairi. They are the only people that I can still relate to. My fellow warriors. They have seen the darkness, they have fought it, and they have been scarred by it just the same._

I was stunned when the heartless disappeared. I was more stunned when I saw the weapon in my hand. I had no idea at that point in time exactly what it would do to me. I knew two things. The first is that I would have to go on a quest. The second is that it looked different from the keyblades from the game. It was highly reflective. It was shaped like a sword, but the point was cut off so that it was squared off at the end. It had three sharp prongs on one side that were straight on bottom and curved on top so that the top met with the bottom. The hilt looked like it was made of gold and was studded with jewels. The keychain looked like two swords crossing each other over a shield.

I knew that I had to continue if I was going to survive. I did not get to decide what I would do, however, since at least a dozen more shadows charged forth. I remembered what Leon had said in the original _Kingdom Hearts_ game about how the heartless would hunt me as long as I bore the keyblade. I do not know how many heartless I fought. I had no training, and only dream experience, so I just swatted away at the shadows. The heartless often bit or scratched my ankles or wrists, but it was never too serious. The people continued screaming around me. Sometimes I would see a shadow jumping on top of a person, clawing at them. Blood would fly everywhere. It is a sight that I never got used to, although I would see it a lot in the coming year. I choked every time I saw such a thing, even toward the end of my journey. I don't know how many innocent people died that day.

After over an hour of fighting, I saw something that made me nearly weep for joy: a gummi ship, about 50 yards away. I stopped fighting and stared in disbelief. A shadow tackled me in the chest during this free moment. It fixed its glowing yellow eyes on my bright blue ones. I heaved it off my chest and struck it with my keyblade. It disappeared just like the others. I looked at where my little sister, mom, and dad were once laying. They were gone. I fought back the tears welling up in my eyes. I started fighting my way toward where I could see the landing gummi ship. It was my only hope. I couldn't fight forever. The ship got close to the ground, and then disappeared in a flash of light. I turned around to face the heartless that I knew was behind me. There was always a heartless behind me. I turned back toward where the gummi ship once was and saw my three new best friends.

"Sora, Riku, Kairi!" I was ecstatic. My childhood heroes had come to fight alongside me. They turned, surprised to hear their names coming from someone from a world that they had never before visited. I began fighting with an increased vigor. The three also began working their way toward me.

"How do you know our names, and why do you have a keyblade?" Riku demanded in a voice remarkably similar to the voice of the character from the game. He grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me close roughly. I stuttered for a few seconds when he did this. I was expecting him to congratulate me for having lasted so long.

"He was fighting the heartless, Riku. He's obviously a friend," Sora said. Riku pushed me away. His voice was friendly, but it did not sound like the voice of a little boy like I remembered from the games. It sounded like the voice of a level-headed twenty-something year old. I then realized that Sora was actually the same height as Riku, both of whom towered over me.

"Yeah, you know who else fought the heartless? Xemnas," Riku retorted.

"Look, I haven't attacked you while you've been standing here gabbing away. Is that good enough?" I replied impatiently.

"He's got a point there, Riku," Kairi replied. Her voice was also like the video game character's, friendly and comforting.

At that point Riku began yelling at the other two, and the others quickly responded. It looked like there would be no end to this argument over whether or not I could be trusted.

At this point, I broke down. I fell onto my hands and knees and wept at their feet. All the emotions that I had been holding back throughout the day came out here, all of my anger, my fear, and my tears. "I need your help!" I sobbed. "And you delay with your questions and doubts?" I glared at Riku. "Innocent people are dying every second! Do you know how many people are here? We have to save them!"

Sora and Kairi charged toward the gates, where many people were still trying to get out, and many heartless were attacking. Riku stayed staring at me. He helped me up and we ran out to fight together without a word.

Sora and Kairi were standing between the shadows and the people at the gates. Riku and I took places so that the heartless were sandwiched by swinging keyblades. They didn't stand a chance against us. Unfortunately, some of them would occasionally slip out and attack a weaker target. Like a small child. Or even a normal sized innocent who still had no hope for survival. We couldn't stop all of them. This is the cold truth of the defender. An attack gets by, and a life is lost. It can not be helped once it has happened. We had to keep fighting. I couldn't always do it. Sometimes I would watch someone being clawed at and would have to stop and watch. It would take someone yelling, or sometimes Riku shaking me, to bring my attention back to the battle. After less than an hour, tears began welling up in my eyes. The battle seemed hopeless, my arms burned as though they had been filled with white-hot steel, sweat was dripping off my face and black hair, and my family was probably dead. Not only that, but it looked like the rest of the world was going to share their fate because I could not fight. I did not even know why I still bothered fighting.

Eventually, however, the number of shadows began to dwindle. They just stopped coming. I guessed that there was a limited number of heartless because Maleficent had needed to come here and release them into the world. I was relieved to drop my arms. They felt like they were being stabbed with knives all throughout. I didn't have much time to rest since Riku grabbed my arm and led me back to where the gummi ship had disappeared. Sora and Kairi followed behind. There was a small block on the ground that looked like a gummi block. Sora walked in front of the rest of us, picked up the block, and pushed a glowing blue button on it. He proceeded to throw it several yards forward. In a puff of white smoke, the gummi ship reappeared. Riku let go of my arm and pushed me forward a little bit. I turned and stared. I was too tired to let him know how fed up I already was, even through facial expressions. I wobbled on my feet.

"Well, my friend, it looks like you have a choice to make," he said.

"_A choice." That was an understatement. My response to that one statement made me who I am today._


	3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I do not own rights to any characters from _Kingdom Hearts_, _Final Fantasy_, or any _Walt Disney Pictures_ movies. The only character in this chapter that I own is Thomas. Please don't sue me. You would lose money on the lawyer even if you got everything I own.

**Chapter Three**

**Questions and Answers**

I looked around the gummi ship with the curiosity of a small child. There were no windows or openings of any kind, except the airlock door. There were many instruments and monitors at the front seat, which appeared to be the pilot's seat. We were all sitting on couches in the bridge. "Why isn't there any way to see outside?" I asked, hoping to start a conversation.

"Nothing to see," Sora replied.

"We're traveling inter-dimensionally, not across some scenic plain," Riku elaborated sarcastically. Everything he said seemed to make me angry. The boyhood idolization had worn off.

_I did not realize that I would soon become all too similar to him._

"Hey, Thomas?" Kairi asked, almost as though she didn't want to say anything to offend me.

"Yes?" I replied. I was a little apprehensive about the question.

"How did you know our names? You called us by our names before we ever met." Riku gave me a cold stare in the eyes, as though he could stare right into my soul and search for evidence that I couldn't be trusted.

"Well, the truth is kinda weird." I didn't see any reason not to tell them the truth. It was far-fetched, and they might not believe me, but if I lied and they found out about it, I was sunk. At least one of them already didn't trust me. "In my world, you guys are pretty well known, but you're fictional. Well, everyone thinks you're fictional. See, you three are some of the stars of a video game series. And it just happens that I play it a lot."

"Video…game?" Kairi asked.

Sora and Riku also appeared curious. "Well, you guys know what computers are," I said, motioning toward the instruments of the gummi ship. "In my world, we often use computers to play games on screens. That's what a video game is. Once technology got more advanced, the games began having story lines."

"So, you're sure that Maleficent didn't tell you about all this?" Riku asked.

"No." I hope I glared at him. He had at least that much coming to him.

"Prove it," Riku retorted. He was suspicious in the worst possible way.

I thought for a second. "I can't." How was I supposed to have proof?

"Riku!" Kairi yelled. "What's wrong with you?" Riku turned away with a sneer on his face.

The familiar look of boyhood excitement appeared in Sora's eyes. "And we're the stars of these things?"

"Of some of them, yeah, but you're kinda different. You're shorter, Sora, and more like a kid, and Riku's…" I didn't know how to finish that sentence. I wished I hadn't started. "But you're about the same, Kairi, as far as I can tell." I panicked. I didn't know what else I could do. I got lucky, though. All Riku did was scoff.

"Hey, I've got a few questions for you, if you don't mind my asking them," I said, trying to move the conversation as far away from my near insult as I could.

"Ok, fire away," Sora replied.

"Ok, are Leon, Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, and the rest of the guys in Radiant Garden real?"

"Yeah," Kairi said, cheerfully.

"Oh, wow." That meant that the Final Fantasy games were at least partly true. "So, are Simba, Hercules, Mulan, Jack Skellington, and all the others real?"

"Yeah," Sora replied. That meant even the Disney movies were true. But how could that be? The stories for some of these movies and games were written multiple decades apart.

I paused for a few seconds. I was shocked. "Ok, so, Sora, do your clothes really give you special powers, like wielding two keyblades, and things like that?" I noticed that they were all wearing their clothes from _Kingdom Hearts II_.

"Sure do," Sora responded. He then switched into valor form so that he was holding the Kingdom Key and the Metal Chocobo.

"But wait, why are you using the Kingdom Key as your main weapon. Isn't the Metal Chocobo stronger?"

"I did have other keychains, but I somehow lost them after the battle with Xemnas. All I've got left is the Kingdom Key, Metal Chocobo, Sleeping Lion, and Fenrir. I would guess I lost them in that strange world in between that battle and when we came home. You know what I'm talking about right?"

"The one with the beach? Yeah. But why can't you switch them?"

"To switch the keychain off the keyblade or the drive orb, you have to be holding another loose keychain in your hand, and these are all attached to something."

"Ok, I guess I get it. So, did you two really have nobodies? Roxas and Namine?"

Kairi fielded this one. "Yeah, but they bonded back with us."

"Alright, I think this is the last question. Did Riku really go into the darkness and come back looking like Xehanort."

"Yes," Riku answered bluntly, coldly.

Kairi walked close to me and spoke softly into my ear. "Riku's still a little sensitive about that. Try to avoid that topic if you can."

"Oh," I said softly. I hadn't thought about all that they had all been through, especially Riku. I thought for a few seconds. "Oh, wait, one more question. What do you guys do about laundry and bathing?"

"Well, we've got showers in the ship," Kairi answered, "but as for the clothing… well I think we should show you." She led me into a room with blue paint and a small bed in one corner. She walked over to the closet and opened the door. There were dozens of the same outfit hanging up, the pink and white that Kairi had worn in _Kingdom Hearts II_. "Sora and Riku's closets are the same way. We have a clothing replicator onboard. We wash our clothes in the washing machine a few doors down when we get on the ship for the first time, replicate them, and wear the replicates as long as we can, washing the replicates until we outgrow them."

"But what do you do for clothes while your clothes are being washed and replicated for the first time?"

"Oh, just hang out in your room for about an hour while we do it for you," Sora answered.

"You mean naked?" I asked. I'm sure my face must have been hilarious to look at as I said this. Sora and Kairi were both hiding grins behind their hands, and Riku looked to the ground with a smirk. "I guess that's a yes, then."

**A/N: At this point, I realize that it may look like I am going to make Riku and Thomas be romantically involved with each other. I just want to make it clear that this will not be how it happens. Kairi and Thomas will not be romantically involved, either. Thank you for your time.**


	4. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I do not own rights to any characters from _Kingdom Hearts_, _Final Fantasy_, or any _Walt Disney Pictures_ movies. The only characters in this chapter that I own are Thomas and the memoria. Please don't sue me. You would lose money on the lawyer even if you got everything I own.

**Chapter Four**

**New Knowledge, New Power,**

**New Problems**

"Kairi?" I yelled. I had not expected her to be the one giving me my new clothes. I was, of course, still naked, standing in my room. I didn't want to sit, because I didn't want to feel the blankets against my bare flesh. I was so surprised to see her when I cracked the door open that I almost fell backwards, opening it all the way.

"Oh, sorry. I guess I should've warned you that it was me." There was an awkward pause. "Well, I'll slip your clothes in through a crack in the door if you open it far enough."

"Um. Okay." We went about it and I believe that she did not see anything that I did not want her to see. "Thanks."

_I don't know why I still remember these trivial details. Maybe because it is in these moments that I felt like there was something normal about me, however small that something was. It removed the war from me and left just me, as I might have been had I grown up normally._

After dressing, I went about putting my clothes in my closet. Questions still went racing through my mind. A few had been answered, but there were still too many. Put simply, I had to know what it was that I did and didn't know. What was true in the games, and what was false? What did I know about real life heartless and nobodies? Was the monster from my dream real? If so, what was it? Was it like the heartless and the nobodies, or was it completely different. Was the girl real, and if so, then who was she? She looked familiar, but I couldn't be sure.

When I was done, I decided to seek more answers.

_I later wished that I had not found some of the answers to these questions. _

Sora and Riku were sitting in the pilot's and copilot's seats, and Kairi was sitting on one of the couches in the bridge. They seemed to be talking about the memoria, but I had no idea what they were then. I sat across from Kairi and tried to listen in, but they stopped talking when they realized I was there. "What's up?" I asked, trying to sound casual, unpresumptuous.

"Not much," Kairi replied as Sora and Riku bent over a navigational instrument, Sora nodding his head. "Riku's just explaining to Sora how to apply calculus to gummi travel. I don't think it's going well."

I chuckled at this a bit. Even looking back, it is funny, mainly because I truly know Sora and Riku now. I had to get serious, though. "Hey, Kairi, I've got a few more questions," I said. "These are really important, though."

"Okay, go ahead," she replied. I think she was trying to sound serious to save face with me, but I could tell that she was still feeling happy and bubbly.

"Okay, are heartless really the darkness in people's hearts in physical form?" I asked. All other questions seemed to revolve around this one.

"Yes, they are," she replied. She seemed actually serious as she answered this question.

"And do they really hunt after other peoples' hearts to make them heartless?"

"Yes." No doubt about it. She was serious now.

"And nobodies are the mind and body left behind by a heartless?"

"Yes."

"So what are…" I stopped here, stunned. My parents and little sister were heartless and nobodies. They weren't dead. It was worse. Part of them had been turned into mindless monsters, and the rest had been turned into emotionless, conscienceless monsters. I might have to kill them one day. Tears began welling up in my eyes.

"What's wrong?" Kairi asked. Riku and Sora turned around and stared.

"My parents… and Danielle. They're gone," I sobbed, burying my face in my hands.

"Not necessarily," Sora said.

"Yeah, it'll be fine in the end," Kairi said. She had come over to my couch and was now rubbing my back.

"What do you mean it'll be fine!" I yelled as I jumped to my feet to face Kairi. "Do you think I'm stupid?" Tears rolled down my cheeks.

"No, I don't think you're stupid. We know of a way to bring them back," Kairi calmly replied.

"What?" I asked.

"People are made up of their heart, mind, and body," Riku, who had moved to the other couch with Sora, explained quietly, so much so that I could barely hear him. "There is a fourth element to a person, however: the memory that others have of them. As long as this memory lives on, they never die."

"Do you realize how cliché that was?" I yelled, thinking that I knew exactly what he meant.

"No, I don't mean they live on in you," Riku replied calmly. "When a heartless is slain, its heart is released. And a nobody can not be fully destroyed. The body may turn to ash, and it may seem that the mind is destroyed with it, but, the body still exists in the form of ash, and the mind remains attached to the body. Do you follow so far?"

I nodded.

"The heart searches for the pieces of the body and mind," Riku continued, "but it can't collect them unless they are incapacitated, by supposedly being destroyed. Now, the memory is the only piece that does not become a creature. So, the free heart, which was probably attached to some other peoples' hearts, goes seeking for those people in order to piece the last bits of the heart back together. It can not attach all the pieces together, though, until they are all split apart. The only way they can all bond is if they are broken apart in close proximity to each other. Once they bond back together, the person reappears in a place that was close to their heart. The creature formed until it is turned back into a human is called a memoria. Got it?"

"Actually, I have a few hazy spots," I replied, a bit dazed. I had sat back down in the middle of his long explanation.

"Okay, let's hear 'em," Sora said, leaning into the conversation.

"Alright. Um, why is your heart not whole when you're a heartless?" I asked.

"Too much is consumed by the darkness," Sora said quietly.

"So, what does a memoria do, exactly?" I asked again.

"It behaves like a heartless, because the darkened heart is at the center" Riku responded. He wanted to avoid mentioning what a heartless did because he knew that everyone knew, and preferred not to think about it.

"Okay. And why do other people hold pieces of your heart?" I asked.

"Because you give the pieces to them for safe keeping, right, Sora?" Kairi responded cheerfully. Sora stammered for a few seconds over the question. I chuckled to myself a little. Then I thought of something troubling.

"But what if all those people die?" I asked.

There was an awkward pause. Kairi was the one to break it. "We don't know, Thomas."

Hope flooded out of me. If I was a wielder of the keyblade, then I was in danger. If I died, then my family might remain scattered pieces, since I might be the last person alive close to their hearts. As though they could see what was going on inside me, Kairi held me tight, while Sora sat on the other side and put his hand on my shoulder. Even Riku looked at me sympathetically.

After a while, I finally decided that some sleep might make me feel better. I wished everyone a good night and went to bed for my first night on the gummi ship.


	5. Chapter Five

_Disclaimer: I don't own rights to any Disney, Square-Enix, Squaresoft, or Squareware characters. I don't like lawyers very much, so please don't sue me._

_**Chapter Five**_

_**Confusion**_

I woke up the next day thinking it had all been a crazy dream. No such luck. I was in my room on the ship, and as I walked out of the room, I heard Riku and Sora talking. "Oh, yeah, I remember now," Sora said. "Remember," I thought to myself. "Remember." I stopped moving. I may have stopped breathing. "Memory of Xehanort." I remembered those words from the hidden video of _Kingdom Hearts II_. "Memoria." Then I started thinking rationally. "It's impossible. How could game developers know what was going to happen in the future in other dimensions? It's just a coincidence." So I forgot about it.

I continued on into the bridge. "So, what's the plan for the day?" I asked. I had no idea what everyday life was like on the gummi ship. It was never explained in the games.

"Training," Riku replied. "Especially you. You really need to work on your technique. And your upper body strength. And your stamina." He scoffed when he was finished.

He was getting to me now. I think he may have been trying.

"Well, he's not that bad, considering that he hasn't had any training," Sora responded. "I think he may be better than you were before Darkside attacked the islands."

"And I haven't even had any training, unlike some people I know," I added, looking him square in the eye.

"Alright, I think you know a little too much about us," Riku said sternly, walking towards me, pushing his face so that it was inches from mine.

"Look, you need to back off!" I yelled. I was tired of him at this point.

"Wow, you're brave, especially considering that your little girlfriend isn't here," Riku jeered.

Sora and I denied simultaneously that Kairi was my girlfriend.

"Oh, yes, how could I forget," Riku said, turning to face Sora with a sneer.

"Would you just shut up already?" I said. "I don't know how everyone keeps from just giving it to you right in the face." Riku turned and faced me menacingly. I then realized how bad an idea telling someone that much bigger than me off was.

"Oh, and what are you going to do?" Sora asked, making it obvious that there was no way that Riku was going to do anything.

"Good morning, guys," Kairi said, walking into the room wearing an apron. "Hey, Thomas, how do you like your eggs? What's going on?"

Riku turned and walked out of the room, presumably to his room, as I soon heard a door slam, and the only manual doors on the ship were the doors to the bedrooms. All the others were automatic.

"Poached, if it isn't any trouble," I said, obviously a little shaken. Honestly, I was a little scared.

Kairi hesitated for a moment, and then realized that I was talking about the eggs. "Okay, yeah, it's no trouble," she replied. She looked at Sora and me and walked back to the kitchen.

I sighed and plopped onto one of the couches. "Is he always like that?" I asked.

"Yeah," Sora replied.

"Is there any particular reason? Like, did something happen to him?"

Sora stuttered here for a few seconds. "He… had a disaster a couple years ago."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know about Aerith, right? How she…" He trailed off here.

"What?"

"How she died."

"She died?"

"Yeah, in a fight against Sephiroth."

"Is that the fight in the Radiant Garden that you led Cloud to?"

"It's not my fault! Cloud said he was looking for him!"

"No, I'm not blaming you. It's just that in the game, only Cloud and Sephiroth fought there."

"No, Tifa, Yuffie, Cloud, and Aerith all fought there. In the Dark Depths. Aerith didn't make it."

"So what does that have to do with Riku?"

"He loved her. After we defeated Maleficent, and he took back his own form..."

I had to interrupt. "Wait. Did Riku take back his real form before or after you defeated Maleficent for the first time?"

"After. Right after we defeated Xehanort's heartless."

"Wait, so was he with you when you were searching for Xemnas?"

"No, he snuck after taking back his true form. He helped the real Ansem put me back together, but Ansem was posing as someone named DiZ. He joined back up with us once we got to the World That Never Was."

"So the game was wrong," I said under my breath.

"What?"

"According to the game, the sequence of events was different. That's sort of weird."

"How's that?"

"Well, they were right on some points, but wrong on others. Like with your personalities. And Aerith doesn't die in your game. She dies in a different one that was made before yours that you aren't in. But the timelines for those two games don't fit together. Wait, when did Riku meet Aerith?"

"He was working behind the scenes, and he met her."

"While keeping the appearance of Xehanort's heartless?"

"No, he went back to his normal form when Roxas and I merged."

"What, why?"

"He was driven into the darkness by my splitting apart. He didn't have enough darkness left in him when I went back to normal."

"So, he was himself all through Kingdom Hearts II."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that…" I paused. I didn't know what it meant. And that's what I said.

"You mean all of your knowledge about us came from something that was only partly right?"

"Exactly!" That meant that Xehanort returning was even less likely. I guess that thought was in the back of my mind the whole time.

_My mind. All I ever should have listened to. Everything else deceived me._

"Breakfast's ready!" Kairi yelled from the kitchen.

**A/N- Hate to leave you hanging, but I'm going to concentrate on my own original writing for a while after this, so I might get on with this in a few months (a few months from September). I started this because I thought it would be fun, and it has so far. But I don't want to lose my vision for my very own creations, so, I'll post more later.**


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